It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to. March 5, 2009

Tomb of the Mad Crusader and Palace of the Ancient One were on the raid agenda last night. Both of the zones went smoothly although we only pulled the first two mobs in TotMC and the first named in PotAO. The Eye Mounted Ring finally dropped again and I lost the roll on it..again.

I give up. 4 months of raiding with the new guild, 100% attendance, not one piece of raid loot. Nothing. Nada. Zip. I can not win a roll and we do not use DKP. I’ve lost rolls to my hardcore raiding mage brethren and I’ve lost rolls to the sometimes raiders. I have to work twice as hard outside of raids to try to stay competitive with the raid gear coming into the guild, and I’m starting to struggle to hold my parse spot..well..kinda anyway.

The first couple of rolls I lost were kind of “Damn that was nice, oh well there’s always next time”, then it was kind of funny that I couldn’t win a roll, now I just accept it and try not to outwardly cringe when I send a tell putting myself in on loot.

This has to be one of the worst runs of luck in the history of non-DKP raiding guilds. 4 months, over 50 raids, nooothhhinnnggg…..

I’ve pretty much geared myself as well as I can outside of raids now with the exception of just a couple of pieces. I work hard at raids, I show up early, I stay late, I play my character to the best of my ability..BLESS ME LOOT GODS, YOU BASTARDS!

I guess I am just frustrated right now. It will pass. I will eventually win something…eventually…soon no one else will need the loot..assuming we don’t recruit a new mage.

I guess I wait till gu51 and hope some of the stuff out of the x2 will be useful for the Coercer and help to keep me competitive.

I think, if I were to set up a raiding situation where there was a mix of regular raiders and sometimes raiders and I wanted to try to be as fair as possible to the sometimes raiders while still attempting to reward those who show up week after week and give their all, I would set up a system like this:

I would set a value of each raid, or each raid mob, or each zone. People who were in attendance for the duration of an event or zone would receive X amount of points, for this discussion, let’s assume that for each zone a raider is awarded 1 point. Raiders will then accumulate those points and can use those points to add to a roll for loot they are after.

For example, Eye Mounted Ring drops and 3 people go in on the roll.

Each of those people send a tell to the raid looter/roller with their desire to be in on the roll and how many points they want to apply:

raider1 tells raid looter “In on ring please”

raider2 tells raid looter “in on ring please +5 to roll”

raider3 tells raid looter “in on ring please +20 to roll”

The the raid looter rolls /ran 100:

for raider1 he rolls a 54

for raider2he rolls a 3 (this is Castillion)

for raider3 he rolls a 37

The modified values are then such:

raider1 no modifications = final number of 54

raider2 modified +5 = final number 8

raider3 modified +20 = final number 57 and a winning roll.

Raider3 is then awarded the ring and deducted 20 points from his total point pool.

It seems like a pretty simple system that would still give all attendees on the raid a chance at loot, while giving the regular raiders an advantage. There would be no “going into the negative” with points.

Of course there will be times when a person can say “+100 to the roll” and get the loot automatically (assuming no one else rolls a 100, as 100 would be the max value you could get). Assuming there is a tie on the roll, or two people send a tell with +100, then there is just a regular /ran 100 roll off with no points and the winner gets the loot and is deducted the 100 points.

Anyway, that’s my idea for a loot system that would include everyone on the raid while giving a slight “edge” to those members who put more time in raiding.

You know, typing all that out has actually made me full much better. Thanks for listening to me rant today ;)

Tonight is an off-raid night and I think we are going to try to Guk for Sass and Tay’s Signature quest update. I’ll let you know how it goes!

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I know for a fact that we have had people join us JUST because they wanted a particular piece of loot. We had a high end raid Templar join us a few times cos he wanted the gloves that Killy won in SoH. As soon as he won that lewt he would have been off. Killy would have missed out and the raid as a whole would not have benefited from the upgrade. That said, most people from out of guild are coming regularly to our raids, and it is the price we pay for filling a raid at our play time.

Dammit. I had a nice long response to this and WordPress dumped it on me. Bah. I’ll try to recreate:

Cast, the only funny thing that’s left about you losing every roll, other than the intrinsic humor that you have lost *every* roll, is that Sinnir’s got some damn loaded dice! She comes home with a +6 Heal Crit piece while your roll bonks into history. [Grats for last night Sinnir, btw! :) ]

Now to your other point and the reason why I wanted to post here. Interestingly, I was in an alliance in EQ that has a DKP system that was almost exactly as you describe. Did it work? Well, from my perspective yeah I guess overall it did. But there was still perennial griping from both sides (casual vs. hardcore). The hardcore people still lost to rolls of 650 from casual players, even with the point adjustments (we were on a /random 1000 scale), and that pissed some folks off. On the flip side, the system tilted favor over time towards the core raiders so much so that with the collective amount of points they had amassed no one could really compete for loot anymore. So I say it “worked overall” because it pretty much did what it set out to do: reward players who showed up the most while still giving the casual players a shot. It is just that the % chance for loot for the casual player got slimmer and slimmer and slimmer and points went higher and higher and higher. In retrospect, I suppose it did just turn into a DKP system under a somewhat alternate moniker, even if the original intent was different.

Now as a pretty consistent player but only casual raider, our current system fits me great. I have a shot at winning something every time I show up. I wouldn’t necessarily want that opportunity to change because it would force me into a different playstyle just to advance. That said, I can understand and appreciate a perspective like yours and would presonally be open to looking at a “casual DKP” system. You probably *should* have an increased chance at loot over a half-time raider.

But, let’s be honest. Any comparision I make between games and guilds and loot systems is a difficult endeavour. My EQ raids had upwards of 65-70 people, of which 30+ would show up every time. This made for a lot of people with a lot of points trying to get a little amount of loot. EQ2 is structured quite differently and could potentially balance a casual DKP system like you suggest more effectively. It is just that in our case we have only ~5 swappable spots in our raid lineup so I can easily envision us seeing similar pitfalls as my EQ experience. Even though I want to think with the right support behind it such a system could in fact work well for smaller and tighter knit casual-raiding guilds, it is hard to say unless adopted, really.

To bring my little tangent to a close and full circle, all this ultimately boils down to 1 thing:

I appreciate what you are saying Wild. I honestly believe that with a few adjustments, like making a cap on how many points you can accumulate and things of that nature, that something like this could work for a guild like ours.

Do I think we should consider implementing it? No. I don’t think it’s suitable for the atmosphere and history of CD. CD strives to be inclusive and accessible for all of it’s members and, honestly, any DKP system causes some seperation between the “raiders” and the “non-raiders”.

I’m not going to lie and say that 4 months of 100% raiding attendance and not winning a single roll is not frustrating, but it’s just something I have to deal with. I may end up taking a break from raiding or something to get my head right again if the die don’t change soon.

Anyway, I didn’t mean to suggest that I was advocating changes in the guild. This is just my sounding board, so who knows what might show up here ;)

I totally understand, man. I would be banging my head against the wall as well! In fact you probably have way more patience than I would. I wasn’t actually thinking you were talking about changing CD even though I kind of was using the DKP template against them in my post. I was trying to think in broader terms of smaller casual-raiding guilds. Or call it boredom at work ;)

Taking a week or 2 off is probably your best approach, tbh. At least long enough to get that mad bastard Bristlebane off your back. He’s really got it out for you and is enjoying the torment waaaay to much. Go zen out or some shit. Come back not wanting anything and BAM, you’ll get it. Works for me at least!

Anyway, it just dawned on me that I hope its cool if I jump into your “sounding board” even though we are same guild. Say whatever you want (not like you wouldn’t) because I am probably the least judgemental person I know, even though by saying that I just judged every person I know :P. I just enjoy reading about SS’s adventures in Norrath and find it even cooler that I get to say hi in game or jump into Vent with you guys now and then!

The way Sabaki guild on Najena server does it, when we have players from other guilds joining our raids, is that we have a specific person from the non-Sabaki raid members (usually the first one to show up) roll a /rand 24. If the number is equal or less than the number of non-Sabaki raid members, the item (provided that it is not class specific, or if it is that someone from that class is among them and that it is an upgrade) is rolled upon by the non-Sabaki members (obviously if only one person can use it, that person will get it by default). Otherwise, the Sabaki Guild members use guild points.

do you raid phil? do you use DKP and know the advantages? Have you ever been in a situation where you have been to each and every raid for a long time yet continue to lose on every single roll and sometimes to people that aren’t part of the regular raid force or an alt? Are we even playing the same fucking game??????